Hummingbird spends £18m on Valid acquisition

Hummingbird has bought UK compliance and records management software vendor Valid Information Systems for £18m.

Hummingbird, which is perhaps best known for its enterprise portal technology, is targeting government IT. In the UK, around 1.2 million government seats require records management and Valid's technology is compliant with key e-GIF, MoReq, UK PRO and WfXML standards.

Privately held Valid will sit in a Hummingbird stable which houses other recent acquisitions. LegalKEY and Kramer Lee & Associates - bought last Friday for £4.5m - were acquired with an eye on the legal sector, while the purchase of Key Automation/DISPRO was also done to focus on government.

Hummingbird products include Hummingbird Portal and Hummingbird Collaboration and the company said Valid will help it maintain a two-pronged, Microsoft plus Java/J2EE approach.